The Indie Game Magazine July 2015 | Issue 51 | Page 7

GAME WATCH

Freemium, Schmeemium

W

ell, it’s been rumored for
months and talked about by the
player-base of WildStar almost
as long as the game has been live. Finally
Carbine has made it official; later this Fall,
the skill-based MMO is going free-to-play,
opening its doors to anyone and everyone
who’s ever been curious about what sets
this game apart in a world filled to the
brim with new and upcoming free-to-play
MMOs.

by Nick Cescon

What makes this type of gameplay so effective is that there is only a seemingly random
chance of reward after the completion of
each task. That randomness will usually keep
players coming back month after month doing the same adventures, raids, dailies and
battlegrounds. This type of model is extremely
effective in World of Warcraft as well as in
many instances of gambling.

current
announcement. While paid accounts
will offer more character slots and costume
slots, they’ve made no mention as to what
will be available in the in-game store for
player purchase. Other MMOs make use
of these stores to offer new weapon skins,
mounts, and costumes, and hopefully we’ll
see this not-too-far down the line for the
But to make the free-to-play model effec- residents of Nexus.
tive, a few different things need to happen.
Players need to feed off the Skinner box in All I’m saying is, offer me a Rowsdower mount
both the paid and free setting, however the for $5 USD, and I think you will be able to
paid setting needs to offer a worthwhile and make this game for at least a few more years,
tempting benefit that does not affect the who’s with me?
overall meta of the game. Players will not
tolerate if paying for the F2P game offers
such benefit that paid players have a distinct
advantage (known as pay-to-win). At the
same time, developers need to make payWe can look at past games that have either
become or started with some form of the F2P ing money into the game enticing enough
model that have been successful, and from to keep the model viable.
that speculate as to how WildStar’s model Many free-to-play models utilize cosmetics
is going to be received.
and convenience this way in their game. In
Currently, WildStar is very much like the both League of Legends and Guild Wars 2,
Developer: Carbine Studios
traditional MMO and relies on a “Skinner in-game stores offer players cosmetic upgrades and services such as name changes,
Box” mentality where players continually do
Platforms: PC, Mac, Linux
the same or similar tasks with the expecta- additional character slots, dyes and additional
Website: www.wildstar-online.com
tion or hope of getting a reward. Doing daily character skins for real money.
quests, leveling or running dungeons are part This is one part of Carbine’s free-to-play system
Twitter: @WildStar
of this system.
that is sadly missing in their only and most

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